A Taste of Iron
by Troo
Summary: Khadgar discovers a magical tool that could help the Alliance in the war against the Horde. When the tables are turned and it is unleashed on Lothar instead, will he survive the changes it brings? Set at the end of the Warcraft movie and beyond, with a few minor changes to established movie/game lore. Lothar/Garona, Llane/Taria
1. Always Listen to Your Parents

**Chapter 1: Always Listen to Your Parents…**

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Philip's parents hadn't thought to warn him about things like this. If only they had. They'd warned him against almost everything else he'd been up to tonight. They'd tried to instill in him wisdom against gambling, drinking, and spending money on the women who kept him company for coin. Those lessons he never learned, he never wanted to. What they never got around to telling him was that he should always just leave the naked girl in the lake to her fate.

'Ain't that just the way things go? I guess a good deed _doesn't_ go unpunished…'

He isn't allowed time to contemplate much of anything else as the dark threads that have pulled him down into the depths of the water start to squeeze. The breath he'd been holding onto is forced form his body, bringing the short and unproductive life of Philip "Blinky" McGiven to a soggy end.

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 **A/N:** Obligatory "The recognizable characters and places and such belong to Blizzard and/or Legendary" comment. Original characters belong to me.

Yes. These notes are going to be longer than the chapter I just posted. No, I do not care. :)

The first 2 ½ chapters are a little bit of a slow setup and don't really have any of the characters that you may know and love, but after that you won't be able to get rid of them. :D

Boring backstory to this story: I've played World of Warcraft just one month short of the entire time it's been publicly available. Yet… I managed to get through those many years without really getting to know the stories and the lore of the world. I owned the Warcraft games from my youth, but only played them long enough to discover that I wasn't any good at them even when using the God-mode codes. All of this changed when the Warcraft movie came out earlier this year. I knew the names of the people on the screen, but I wouldn't have been able to tell you much of anything about them even though I've spent almost a fourth of my life with some of them. I saw the movie in theaters at least seven times and started delving into lore websites. I fell in love with the characters that I'd previously viewed as a means to an end in the WoW leveling process.

Unlike the people who have lived and breathed the lore before me, I am a lore noob. I am aware of this fact and will no doubt make mistakes. I have attempted to meld the lore from the movie and match it up to established game lore and have even added a few twists of my own when neither lore was quite perfect for what I needed. The characters I am working with are the movie versions. While doing lore research I discovered I like the personalities of the movie versions a lot more than the game versions in most cases.

If you've made it this far, I thank you for sticking with me. Woo! This is the part where I touch on what this story will include. It's going to have stabbing, it's going to have death. It's going to have a vampiric theme to it that seems to work in this world well enough. The original version of this story as posted on another site has explicit content. I see that this site doesn't allow that so I am going to do my very darnedest to edit those sections down to what is allowed before posting them here.


	2. A Good Night For a Swim

**Chapter 2: A Good Night For a Swim**

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Hours earlier on this dark and moonlit night, the young woman woke up in her comfortable bed in her second floor bedroom in the small village near the lake that would soon be Philip's doom.

It wasn't a dream that had woken her, but one of the visions that her self-taught magic would bring her from time to time. This particular vision showed her a scene unlike any she had ever witnessed with her her physical eyes or her mind's eye.

oOoOo

She had watched as an army of Humans arrived near a large, primitive encampment in front of a towering, freestanding stone doorway to nowhere. She'd looked closer and had noticed that the beings in the camp were not like any she had ever seen before. Most were green in color and all were much larger and bulkier than any of the races that could be found on Azeroth. Large tusks and spikes seemed to be attached to, sticking out of, or growing from just about every surface of these brutish invaders and their camp. She'd watched as the Humans charged into this green army, as the stone frame was filled with a brilliant green magic, and as more green warriors flowed out of the strange doorway.

A glint of silver caught her attention and her focus was pulled to the man in the shiny silver armor down in front of the portal. There was only one person that he could have been. She'd never met or seen the King of Stormwind before, but his armor and bearing proved his identity to her. Behind him, the green gateway faltered and failed briefly before flaring back to life with a blue tinted scene of a large city on the other side. With the change in the portal, green beings no longer joined the fight from wherever they were coming from and Humans began frantically racing through in the opposite direction.

She'd watched as the portal failed completely, trapping the King and the remaining Humans in a crowd of green. She'd seen a stunted female green warrior in Stormwind armor betray the King with a dagger and then a dark haired man in dark clothing and no shoes dropped out of the sky on a fantastical flying beast. He'd killed the warrior leader of the green fighters and then flown away with the body of the King.

oOoOo

That was where the vision had ended. Whatever it had tried to show her, whatever it was trying to warn her about, it would be found in that short glimpse into the future. Of this she was sure. She knew that the power that would be required to dig through the visions of alternate timelines surrounding what was shown to her would be far too great to wield inside of the village walls. She had to get away from the town.

* * *

Being the night before the weekly services, a good portion of her village is already in bed. The girl slides out from under the warm blankets on her ed, her feet contacting the floorboards that are still warm from the fireplace in the room just below hers. The smile on her face is the only thing she's wearing. As she starts moving towards the windows that look out over the village, she realizes her pale skin will make it much harder to make it out of town without being spotted. Despite her aversion to the way clothing feels against her skin, she retrieves dark colored pants and a shirt from her wardrobe and quickly dresses herself. An earthy brown hooded cloak follows to hide her easily recognizable hair and near-translucent skin from anyone she will have to pass.

Once dressed, she makes her way to the one window in her room that still opens. Thanks to the time and care she's taken with it, it makes absolutely no sound as she slides the movable pane up and out of the way. After checking to make sure that no one is around to observer her exit, she climbs out onto the overhang below and then down to the ground. She quickly makes her way out of the town and into the woods, managing to remain completely unseen the whole time.

oOoOo

The young woman makes her way through the trees, forging her own path to the nearby swimming hole. As she steps into the clearing around the large pond, she removes her cloak, letting it drop to the ground near the edge of the water. She hadn't bothered with footwear so she is quickly naked once again, her clothing tossed near where here cloak lies.

She dips the toes of her right foot into the water and finds that it has remained pleasantly warm from the day's sunlight, despite the coolness of the night. Continuing onward, she wades into the pond. Once she can no longer touch the bottom, she swims to the center and turns over to float on her back. The water holds so much life, so much potential power for her to use. She reaches out with her strange magic, pulling power from the life in the water and from the plants that draw nourishment from the lake. As the power flows into her, empowering her to access the visions at will, dead fish begin floating to the surface of the lake and the grass at the edge of the water starts turning brown. The water muffling the sounds around her, she closes her eyes and drifts into another version of the future that she had seen.

One vision after another, more after that. Her intention is to go through as many versions as needed to find one with a positive outcome. Always starting at the point where the Humans arrive near the portal and traveling past the events of the vision she'd had in her room. They all end in her death. She sees herself die in many futures, in many ways, but always in her awful village and always on the night that a dark haired monster comes to town.

She's about to give up for the night, her power running low with no more life around her to use, when a man's voice calls out from the distance.

"Hang on lady, I'll save you!"

Despite the sound deadening effects of the water around her ears, she hears him splash into the water and head her way. Pulling herself from the vision she is currently viewing, she turns over so that she is facing him and calls back to him, "Thank you sir, but I'm not the one that needs saving."

She brings an arm out of the water and places her hand upon its surface. As her skin meets the water, black tendrils of magic leech into the water and head towards the helpful fellow.

The bright moonlight lets him see them coming for him. He tries to turn around, to get back to the safety of the shore, but he stands no chance. The magic flows around him, surrounding him, binding him tightly. He doesn't make a sound as it pulls him below the surface and steals the power of the life it squeezes out of him.

'It was so nice of him to bring me more,' she thinks to herself. With the added power, she can stay out in the lake all night, and she does.

oOoOo

Drifting through countless futures, she is unable to find one with an acceptable outcome. A few show signs of ending well, but something always goes wrong. The girl starts to lose hope that she will find a future where she survives.

Then, shortly before the sky begins to lighten for the day, a vision shows her everything she could have ever hoped for. It shows her walking out of the rubble of her town with a powerful and handsome companion, and then walking into a giant city full of people cheering for her, appreciating her. Fame, power, prestige… life.

Now that she has found her hope, she travels back and forth through the vision, looking for the moment this alternate future splits from the current timeline. When she spots the difference she can't help but giggle. Such a small thing. Such an easy thing to manipulate.

Secure in the knowledge of how to save herself, she swims back to the shore and dries herself with her cloak. Clothing is quickly donned and she hurries back to and through the gates of the town walls, up to her window and into her room before the village wakes up. The only person to have witnessed her excursion is currently tangled in dead weeds in a dead lake and will not be discovered for almost a week. He won't be telling anyone anything at that point.

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 **A/N** : I am still learning a LOT about writing. When going back over these sections I wrote months back, I'm not as happy with them as with some of my newer stuff. I'm a reader, not a writer. :)


	3. What Was Dead

**Chapter 3 – What Was Dead…**

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A few years pass. The girl continues to live her life in the walled village that sits where two roads meet. Most of her days are spent as they had been before the vision of her death. She wakes in the morning and waits for one of the short periods of time each day that begins with the sound of the locks on her bedroom door clicking open, one after another. Her parents let her out into the inn they own for a quick meal and to take care of whatever needs require meeting and then escort her right back. The sound of the locks re-engaging signaling the beginning of the parts of the day where she is free.

Free to study, free to learn, free to hone her magical skills with no interruptions or judgment. The prison that she hates so much is also her best opportunity to ensure that she's prepared and skilled enough when the time comes.

Her days are spent teaching herself from the books of magic and alchemy that were gifted to her by a stranger shortly before she came into her powers at the age of seven. She never caught his name, but she could tell he was incredibly powerful. The books teach her wondrous and awful things. Spells for destruction, spells for controlling, spells for almost any need she might have. She learns.

What skills she foresees needing that the books do not teach, she asks her mother or father to teach her. They're always a bit surprised when she suddenly shows interest in mundane life skills and always do what they can to answer her questions. It makes them feel less guilty about what they've done to their daughter. Little do they know they are contributing to their own deaths with the knowledge they pass along.

Her nights are where she can truly be herself. Her parents had tried sealing all of the windows in her room so she couldn't get out, and they though they had succeeded. They hadn't done quite as complete a job on one pane as the others and she had slowly managed to pry it open. With hours of work put into the task, she then made sure that the window would never betray her with a noise.

While the locks on her door are her path to knowledge, this window is her gateway to putting what she has learned into practice. It allows her to hone her thievery and magical skills. Whenever she feels like working on what she has only read about, or if she needs supplies that her parents can't provide, she slips out after dark. Sneaking into shops, barns, and homes, she takes what she needs a little bit at a time so the loss is barely noticed. Wandering into the fields and forests and testing out new spells, using magic that she can't use in the confines of her bedroom walls. Visiting the village's weaponsmith's shop every night for over a month after hearing the news that he'd been chosen to make the Queen a dagger for her birthday. Setting the first major part of her plan to change her fate into motion with a simple set of spells worked into the weapon on the night she finds it lying unguarded on his workbench.

Other girls her age are married, either by choice or by arrangement. She can't imagine being tied to a man who would make her cook, clean, sew, or any of the other things that go along with marriage. While her parents seem to get along rather well, she's seen how a lot of wedded women are treated in these farmland villages and she has no desire to live that life. The locks on her door provide housing, food, clothing, warmth, and all the free time she could ever ask for. If only they weren't there to hide her talents from the world and to protect her parents from what they see as a shame upon their name.

Despite being in a situation most would not be able to endure, she never runs away. It would be easy to do so and she's though about it many times. Once she made it as far as the Whitney farm a few miles outside of town before turning around and going home. If she leaves, the future from her vision will never come to pass. So she tolerates this town a little while longer.

* * *

While the young woman plots, schemes, and prepares over the years, the rest of Azeroth moves along its intended course.

The Orcs crawl out of the portal in the murky water in the Black Morass and begin their march across the land. They work on constructing the stone portal on this planet to reconnect them to their own and their war with the Alliance begins.

Garona is welcomed by the Humans of Stormwind.

Durotan is betrayed by Orgrim while betraying Gul'dan at the foot of Blackrock Mountain.

The tainted Guardian falters in the defense of his people and Callan dies.

Garona comforts Lothar. He falls in love with her and she, him.

The one point in the future that the girl's plans balance upon comes ever closer as Lothar is locked in a cell and Medivh leads the Human forces into a deadly trap.

Khadgar frees Lothar and they travel to Karazhan where they halt Sargeras' plans by ending Medivh's life.

The moment where everything changes finally arrives.

* * *

The portal from Draenor has failed. The portal to Stormwind has taken its place. Human prisoners are fleeing to the safety of the city, protected by the soldiers as they do so.

The magic that the girl wove into the dagger that Garona now wields was activated the first time Garona touched the gift from Lady Taria. The subtle spell shave been working on Garona's subconscious since that moment and have been waiting for this moment to fulfill their purpose.

So when Garona tells the King that they should go through the portal to safety and he tells her they need to help their people through first, and then she pushes a random child into Karos' arms and shoves him through to Stormwind, she doesn't realize the idea is not her own.

She doesn't know that as she's driving the dagger down into Llane's neck, her arm pulls slightly to the side of its own accord, following whispered commands she doesn't hear. A fatal strike missed by a mere twitch. She believes she has killed him as he requested.

Garona supports King Wrynn's body as he collapses to the ground in front of her. She knows that she should make her way to the waiting Horde to appear unaffected by the death of her friend, that what she does next could cost all the progress she just made with his death, but the girl's spells are not quite through with her yet.

The Orcs move forward to claim the dead king's body, to celebrate his defeat, to destroy him. Garona bends down and slides Llane's sword out of its scabbard and protectively warns them away with it. Gul'dan steps forward out of the mass of Orcs and commands her to get out of the way, telling her to come to him with an outstretched hand.

The spells have done their work. Extra time has been bought, Llane's death has been averted. Garona lowers the sword, dropping it near their Warchief as she passes him on her way towards Gul'dan. The one thing she's wanted her whole life, hearing Gul'dan announce she is welcomed as an Orc, now has a bitter sting to it that stabs at her heart. She fights tears as she reaches up and takes his hand in acceptance.

As she does so, Orcs begin to advance towards Llane's body again. The interrupting cray of a great bird draws everyone's attention to the sky. Llane is forgotten as Anduin Lothar arrives on the gryphon. Beast and man crash into the crowd. Between his skills with a sword and the beast's sharp natural weapons, enough space is cleared around Llane's body to allow Lothar to discover Garona's treachery before loading Llane onto the gryphon and making an escape.

The changes to the timeline are contained to Garona's actions, leaving the rest of this event to play out as it originally did in the girl's first vision.

A hand reaches into the air, pulling the gryphon to the earth, thwarting Lothar's escape.

Lothar regains consciousness and the Orc's Warchief challenges him to Mak'gora while throwing Llane's sword to him.

Lothar gets revenge on Blackhand for the slaughter of his son with the victory in the duel of honor. Blackhand's death also earns him the respect of the Orcs which allows him to gather the King's body and sword onto the gryphon again and take flight. He makes eye contact with Garona as he flies over the crowd, saying goodbye.

What occurs next is the culmination of all of the girl's planning and work over the years since the night she killed the man in the lake.

* * *

A storm of emotion swirls around inside of Lothar as he leaves the Black morass on gryphon-back. His king and best friend dead. The woman that he loves is responsible. His other childhood friend dead by his actions. It's only a small relief knowing Callan's death was repaid.

His destination is Stormwind. He needs to bring the King's body home and let the kingdom know what has happened this day. His course takes him over the mountains that separate the Black Morass and the land around Karazhan. As the gryphon flies above the decimation that spreads outwards from Karazhan, he swears he feels Llane breathe.

With no way to check for life while riding through the sky, he directs the gryphon to head towards Karazhan instead. The beast quickly covers the distance to the tower they left not too long ago and Lothar has it fly him by the broken window in the upper part of the tower that he almost fell out of earlier.

As they pass by, he shouts for Khadgar, hoping the mage is still there. They circle the tower and the opening in the wall appears in front of him again. Khadgar pokes his head out of the gap. The gryphon slows and flies in closer.

"Meet me at the base of the tower, now!" he yells at his young friend and then directs the gryphon down to a safe landing spot near where Khadgar first met Moroes.

He carefully dismounts, pulling Llane off with him. He gently lays Llane down on his left side on the marble surface and kneels behind him, checking for signs of life. Impossibly, they're there. Lothar can feel a pulse so weak he misses it at first. Llane's chest moves almost imperceptibly, but it does. He knows Llane's changes of survival are lessening every moment and that they need to get him to the healers in Stormwind immediately to save him. If he still can be saved.

Thankfully, Khadgar appears in the doorway of the tower and hurries over.

"We need a portal to Stormwind, now! Please." Lothar's first words commanding, his last word begging.

After absorbing the sight of the direly injured Llane, Khadgar looks around desperately for anything he can use to form the runes to make the portal. There is nothing and the marble is too hard to scratch the designs in with a blade. "I need to get something to draw the runes with, I'll be right back." He stands and turns to head back to the tower.

Lothar's voice calls him back, "There's no time. Here..."

Khadgar watches as Lothar leans over Llane, pulls a small knife from the King's belt, and cuts through the laces holding the bracer onto his left arm. He pulls the bracer off and slides the blade into the wrist of his coat sleeve. Without difficulty, Lothar slides the sharp blade through the arm of his coat all the way past his elbow and then pulls the sleeve of his linen shirt up and out of the way, allowing access to his forearm.

He winces as he watches Lothar drag the blade through the skin along his inner arm, not that far from his wrist, slicing deeply. Blood immediately wells to the surface and begins to flow freely from the deep cut. Across his hand, down his fingers, running onto the stone underneath.

Khadgar hurries to Lothar's side and places his hand in the warm puddle, coating his fingers with Lothar's blood. He tries not to think about what is covering his skin as he uses it to draw the runes around them. It's not the most efficient medium he's ever used for this task and he has to return for more a few times to complete his work. The first time he does so he worries out loud that with as rapidly as the pool is forming beneath his friend's fingers, that he may have cut a little too deeply.

"Just get us there and they can fix it," Lothar growls impatiently at him.

While Khadgar smears his blood in specific patterns all around them, Lothar concludes that Khadgar is right. He did do far more damage to himself than he intended to. He's starting to feel a bit lightheaded and shaky from the blood loss and the rest of his injuries from the day, 'That really is a lot of blood,' and realizes he can't move the three middle fingers on that hand. He drops the knife he hadn't realized he was still holding, and clumsily removes his belt using only his right hand.

He's attempting to tighten his belt around his arm, just above his elbow, when the magic beings to build around them. His vision is starting to gray around the edges as Khadgar bends down to pull the spell's focus from the center of the runes.

The portal forms and pulls them out of existence in Karazhan, leaving the gryphon behind, and drops them into the throne room of Stormwind.

* * *

There is only a skeleton crew manning the area of the Keep that they appear in. Most of the forces that remain in the city have gone to defend against possible invasion from the large portal that appeared just outside the city's walls and began spewing forth escaping Humans.

As the magic of the portal fades, Khadgar sees they made it safely, but that there is no one in sight to help them. He is just about to head down a hallway to look for help when Lothar topples over. The sound of his body hitting the stone floor turns Khadgar around. Lothar hadn't managed to secure the tourniquet before they ported and as he lands on his right side, his fingers release the belt, letting the blood flow freely again.

Khadgar starts yelling for help as he rushes around behind Lothar, grabbing the end of the belt that Lothar had dropped. He pulls the belt as tightly around the arm as he can while keeping the injury elevated. The bleeding slows and finally comes to a stop. He yells again.

A man and a woman rush into the room, having heard his cries for help. They are quite surprised by what they discover upon entry.

Khadgar yells at them, "Get a healer! We need a healer!" The maid turns and rushes out of the room to follow his orders. The royal guard that came into the room just before the maid heads towards Llane but Khadgar calls him over to Lothar's side instead and has him take over maintaining the pressure around Lothar's raised arm. He then moves to Llane's side and checks carefully to see if he is alive.

Only minutes pass before two female healers rush into the room and move to the unconscious men. The woman who is examining Llane immediately barks an order to the guard that is still holding onto the end of the belt, "We're going to need more healers. Find any you can and send them to the infirmary. Send us more men here as well. Now!"

The healer kneeling behind Lothar nods to the guard and reaches for the belt he is holding so that he can do as the first healer instructed. The guard stands and races from the room, his armor making quite the racket as he goes.

Lothar's healer skillfully works the belt into a highly functional tourniquet that doesn't need anyone holding onto it an then lays his arm along his side so that she can use both hands to get a good look at the injury. She can tell that he's already lost quite a bit of blood as his body is showing signs of shock. His skin is pale, cool, and a bit clammy to the touch. His breathing is shallow and faster than it should be.

As she is gently probing the cut to see how bad the damage is, Lothar regains semi-consciousness and tries to pull his arm away from the pain her touch is causing. She stops her examination and tells him to hold still, that she's just trying to help. He doesn't seem to hear her and continues weakly trying to pull his arm out of her grasp. "A little help here?" she asks of Khadgar, who is uselessly hovering near Llane's healer.

Before Khadgar can respond, Lady Taria rushes into the room. She'd been alerted to what is going on by the guard as he loudly rushed through the Keep on his mission to find more healers. The sight of her husband and her brother both lying injured on the floor is a shock that freezes her in place for a moment. As it wears off, she doesn't even choose, her feet are already carrying her to Llane's side.

"What is wrong…?" is all Taria manages to say before her eyes find the handle of her dagger jutting out of his neck. Her question ends in a loud gasp. "Why aren't you doing anything?!" she demands of the healer at Llane's side as she drops to her knees beside her. She is terrified that the healer isn't doing anything because there is nothing that can be done.

As more people sent by the guard enter the room, the woman starts to explain to Taria that she can do nothing safely until they get him to the infirmary and have more healers available. That her skills alone would do nothing but kill the King if she were to try on her own. While she discusses the details of what needs to be done with Taria, Khadgar moves from Llane's side to kneel next to the healer behind Lothar.

"I need you to make him stop moving. I can't complete the spell that will repair the damage with him struggling like this," she explains to Khadgar.

Unsure of how best to do as the healer has asked, he places his left hand on Lothar's shoulder, leans over him, and starts talking to him. "Lothar.. hey.. it's Khadgar. We're safe, we made it." Lothar's head turns back towards him ever so slightly at the comforting words. "I need you to relax. Llane is being cared for, you got him here in time." As the assurance sinks in, Khadgar can feel Lothar's body being to relax under his hand. "Just rest. The healer is going to fix your arm and when you wake up, everybody will be okay."

Lothar's head sinks back to the floor and his eyes close, Khadgar's words convincing him it's okay to stop fighting. "Thank you," the healer says to Khadgar before beginning the incantation for the spell that will knit the damaged arteries, nerves, and flesh back together. He watches with fascination as the healing process works on Lothar's arm.

oOoOo

Taria can see the magical yellow glow coming from her brother's healer as she looks over to the small group of people who have arrived and are waiting around for instructions. She calls them over. Llane's healer instructs them on the best way to pick Llane up and then carry him without injuring him further. Most of them get to work following her orders and quickly have the King on his way out of the throne room and heading towards the infirmary. A few stay behind to help take Lothar there as soon as they healer is done working on him. As her husband is carried from the room, Taria follows. She pauses in the doorway for one last look at her brother before turning and following Llane.

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 **A/N** : In my version of Azeroth, people with magical abilities are born with it in their genetics. At a certain age the talents activate and they have to learn to handle them. Only after I'd decided on this did I learn that pretty much anyone can be taught magic in Azeroth, but it was too late to change it for my story.


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